


The Road Home

by mountainbluebird



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Thor Ragnarok - Fandom
Genre: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Brunnhilde | Valkyrie-centric (Marvel), F/F, Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 06:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21249218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountainbluebird/pseuds/mountainbluebird
Summary: Six snippets of Valkyrie as she finds her way home, set to Stephen Paulus' song "The Road Home."





	The Road Home

  * ——————•

** _Tell me, where is the road_ **

** _ I can call my own,_ **

** _That I left, that I lost_ **

** _So long ago?_ **

  * ——————•

“Pour me another drink, bartender.”

It wasn’t like she couldn’t spare the money, flush with the grandmaster’s cash after her latest “acquisition.” She tipped the amber liquid in her glass to-and-fro, admiring the way it reflected the light. She felt a strange melancholy settle over her, something she hadn’t felt for a millennium. Something she was sure the alcohol had burnt out of her long ago.

_You are Scrapper 142, not Brunnhilde the Valkyrie, _she snapped to herself. _Get ahold of yourself, idiot. You left that life behind long ago. You owe no loyalty to anyone. Especially not to bloody-fucking Asgard. _Through the dingy bar window, a few rays of sun crept in and splattered across the tables, turning the wood straw-blond and bright. Thor-blond. Scrapper 142 thought of Thor’s shorn hair. She snarled and stood up, knocking her chair to the floor with a clatter. She slapped a coin on the bar. The door swung shut behind her with a bang, and she didn’t look back.

  * ——————•

** _All these years I have wandered,_ **

** _Oh when will I know_ **

** _There’s a way, there’s a road _ **

** _That will lead me home?_ **

  * ——————•

Thor had asked her to join his team? As if. The new ones always refused to accept it, but anyone who survived long enough learned the rules of the game. Sakaar was like a great black hole, it sucked you in, sank its claws into your soul, refused to let you go. All these years later, she’d seen it again and again—anger tarnishing to despair. She’d let it harden her, turn her into a tool for the Grandmaster—body and mind. She thought of her past deeds and cringed at the reflection. It was nothing that alcohol wouldn’t fix.

Out of the blue, Brunnhilde was struck by a wave of longing for the life she had once had. But that was long ago, and that home no longer existed (if it had ever even existed as more than a fiction of Odin’s). She shook it off. How could one such as she ever find her way home? If there ever was another way to go, she had long since missed it.

  * ——————-•

** _After wind, after rain,_ **

** _ when the dark is done,_ **

** _As I wake from a dream _ **

** _In the gold of day_ **

  * ——————•

She came back to herself staring into Loki’s face. Her mind felt like it had been blown free of cobwebs, the broken-dagger edges of her memories sharp enough to draw blood. Gone was the blurriness brought on by years of avoidance and alcoholism.

She shook her head as if to clear the ringing from her ears. She had forgotten the color of Hildr’s eyes, the way her hair had shone like the sun.

To remember—that was an unexpected gift. But it came with the memory of the light leaving her lover’s eyes as Hildr was cut down, saving Brunnhilde from Hela. She closed her eyes and saw Hildr die again.

And again. Her golden hair was a halo and she had appeared just in time.

And again. Hela’s face pulled back in a hate-filled snarl.

And again. Time seemed to slow as they fell down, down, down.

And again. They landed together in some kind of final embrace. She was still warm.

And again. Her golden hair had been matted with blood.

Beyond the roaring of her heart in her ears, it felt as if something had broken, that shell of indifference she’d worked so hard to build cracking and crumbling around her. She felt her soul emerge from its cage; she flinched at the burn of the light.

_“They are your people too,” _she imagined Hildr saying. She recoiled as if struck, the words seared themselves, golden, into her heart, into the hole where her lover used to be.

  * ——————•

** _Through the air there's a calling _ **

** _From far away,_ **

** _There's a voice I can hear _ **

** _That will lead me home_ ** **.**

  * ——————•

She followed Thor back to Asgard, followed the golden prince as she had once followed his father, back to Asgard, her once-home, the sleeping place of her heart.

She donned her silvery armor once more, charged into battle against Hela. And the great snake of history circled back on its own tail. Asgard fell to the flame and the sword, to its prophesied destruction, to ruin and greed. But home was not lost. Home was in the memories in her heart, in the last of the Asgardian people. As they sped into the stars in a stolen ship, Thor leading the way, Brunnhilde knew she was exactly where she belonged.

  * ——————•

** _Rise up, follow me, _ **

** _Come away, is the call,_ **

** _With the love in your heart_ **

** _As the only song_ ** **;**

  * ——————•

In the aftermath of Thanos’ attack, the survivors of Asgard were cut adrift. Their king and their prince presumed dead along with half their people. Children cried out for their parents, parents for their children. They’d already lost so much. It was this that confronted Brunnhilde as she dragged herself out of grief’s stupor.

_We can’t give up, not now,_ she thought to herself. _We can’t let their sacrifice be in vain. There’s no one left to lead Asgard but me. If I give up, if I lose hope, we are all doomed. _She thought of her love for her people, for the hope she’d had and lost in Thor (and Loki), and scraped her pieces off the floor to put them back together again.

And Asgard? They lost a beacon of hope that day, but their community—sustained by little more than hope, love, and stubbornness—persisted, and resisted, and most importantly, survived.

  * ——————•

** _There is no such beauty _ **

** _As where you belong;_ **

** _Rise up, follow me, _ **

** _I will lead you home._ **

  * ——————•

The weight of responsibility, of kingship over her people settled heavy on Brunnhilde’s shoulders. She breathed in and knew she could not fail her people. Asgard, fragmented though she was, lived. Brunnhilde would bring her people home: she would guide them, she would support them, she would build their home up with her own two hands. She would lead them home.


End file.
